Pandemic Readiness and DMS: Swine Flu 2009

DMS has released a POD and Pandemic File for our current customers.

Any customers needing immediate assistance should call 860-287-7221 or 860-287-7223 or 203-676-4182.
This software tracks distribution of your SNS inventory of Tamiflu and Relenza.
It also will track your POD patients, as well as any current suspected cases of Swine Flu as well as confirmed cases.

For those customers wishing to track and report in excel format, this ability exists within the server version of FirstTrak and can be activated by customer service.

Thank you.

DMS

Tags: Disaster Management Solutions, DMS, Inventory, kirchberg-schmitt, mass casualty, MCI, pandemic preparedness, POD, Relenza, service, swine flu, Tamiflu

The Eastern Shore

For several years now, our company has been all over the country, gathering data and feedback from hospitals, Public Safety agencies, Fire Departments, Regional Councils, Emergency Management Agencies… all to create, recreate, change, and morph the FirstTrak Suite into something useful for every sector of Disaster Healthcare.
From mobile field hospitals to large several hundred bed facilities, from small town fire departments to one of the largest in the country, we work with all to create a unified data structure that enables many to stand as one.
Constantly changing and growing from each real life experience, each deployment with one of our customers, and each drill we attend and participate in, we have enabled a product once used for inventory to collect data on Flu Immunizations, Point of Dispensing, Pet Tracking, Evacuees, Family Reunification, Patient Tracking, MCI transports, Evidence Collection, and Decedent Tracking and Identification.
Our latest trip was to visit one of our first customers Caroline County Public Health, and to welcome the newest members of the DMS family, MHE and DGH, both located on the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Tags: Decedent Tracking and Identification., DMS, evacuees, Evidence Collection, Family Reunification, Flu Immunizations, Inventory, MCI transports, Patient Tracking, Pet Tracking, Point of Dispensing, Shore Health

The Great Shakeout After Action Report Commentary

excerpt taken from DMS After Action Report:

DMS participant commentary

Kim Kirchberg-Schmitt
Strike Team Leader, LAFD Project Manager

The goal of this exercise for me was to get the units in the hands of a few of the members of the department, and to expose the LAFD to the EPTS they have invested in. This project I expect will be an ongoing effort of several members of both the department, as well as DMS. With the recent fires and train disasters, it seems that the natural progression would be to slowly expand the awareness of the system first, and then attempt to install and deliver it to those who will be ultimately responsible for patient tracking.
I was extremely pleased with the LAFD’s involvement and commitment to this test of the system, and felt that the drill was a success from both a technology perspective as well as a human one. Without the support of key individuals who were obviously prepared ahead of time with information and an objective, I don’t believe the test would have been met with such enthusiasm and acceptance. All of the patients that were appropriately funneled through the choke point created at the East Gate area were scanned and tracked using the system, and even those who were not given a bar-coded tag were able to be tracked with ease by rapid manual entry of their triage tag ID.
The drill was intended to have an element of surprise for many of the responders and I felt this contributed to the ultimate success of the test. The natural flow of an incident is never one without bottlenecks, but the ability to identify those bottlenecks and put them to productive use (gathering more specific patient data such as name, gender, DOB, and photos) was one that evolved as the exercise progressed.
At the end of the incident, being able to give the total counts to the PIO staff within a few minutes was clearly representative of the hard work and dedication of the participants, as well as the functionality and usability of the system overall.

Tags: After action report, California, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Drills, EMS, EMT, Fire Department, Golden Guardian, Great Shake Out, kirchberg-schmitt, LA Fire Department, LinkedIn, mass casualty, MCI, Paramedic, Patient Tracking, response, strike team, tracking, train crash, transport, treatment, Triage

Golden Guardian 2008 and the Great Shakeout

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
__________________________________________________
FirstTrak Patient Tracking System Tested During Great Shakeout
Torrance, CA - November 20, 2008 – Disaster Management Solutions
(DMS) achieved continued success working with four separate public safety
agencies and numerous hospitals simultaneously during the largest disaster
exercise of its kind in California last week. The Great Shakeout simulated a 7.8
earthquake and saw over 5 million participants across the state. Of
those that participated, the DMS First Trak Patient Tracking System
successfully tracked well over 500? (need actual number or ballpark
here) individuals (need the from where to where here).
“We are very pleased with the feedback we heard from our customers
during the exercise. Four separate public safety agencies of considerable
size in Southern California utilized the system and the response was
very positive,” said DMS President Jay O’Donnell. Riverside County,
Kaiser Bellflower, the Los Angeles County Coroner and the Los Angeles Fire
Department all utilized the FirstTrak system as part of the
exercise. DMS staff were on-hand at the Mission Hills school that the Governor
personally attended and spoke at and were excited to be able to showcase the system
to him.
“Being a local company, we have an added interest in disaster
preparedness in Southern Cal and we are delighted to have quite a
footprint established in the area and to be able to make a
difference,” commented O’Donnell.
Located in Southern California, Disaster Management Solutions and
their First Trak Suite enables multiple uses for multiple purposes
and applications. First Trak has been utilized by hospitals, EMS
agencies, fire departments, public health agencies, the National
Guard and the Red Cross. Disaster Management Solutions has over 25
regional engagements across the country covering over 400 individual
entities.

Tags: California, drill, earthquake, EMS, First Responder, FirstTrak, kirchberg-schmitt, LA City Fire Department, Linked In, O'Donnell, Paramedic, Patient Tracking, preparedness

Memphis Training

Memphis and Shelby County used the First Trak system during Gustav to track the evacuees they recieved from New Orleans. The system worked well and was easy to train the First Responders on in less than 10 minutes. This week, the Shelby Co. MMRS group was able to train a new group of trainers within their response system from many different agencies. The Memphis Fire Department sent a large continigent of Battalion Chiefs and Trainers as well as Paramedics, The Red Cross was very well represented, and numerous local hospitals and EMS agencies. Germantown Fire Department and Bartlett Fire/EMS were represented. I was honored to meet staff from Tenet Healthcare’s St. Francis- Bartlett, Methodist, The Med, LeBonheur, the Memphis VA, and Delta Medical Center.

ProMed sent representatives from Knox County (Eastern Tennessee also has the system) as well as their Memphis operation. Also represented were Emmact, Abundant Care, and the Memphis/Shelby County EMA. The Office of Preparedness sent representives as did the Tennessee Department of Health-Division of EMS.

This is exactly the kind of multi-agency trining that is need to ensure a seamless integration of an EPTS in a community or region. No longer do you need a subject matter expert in the MAC or in your EOC to know how the tracking system works! When all levels of response are trained, as well as all agencies, the system can be expanded and utilized to it’s fullest capacity.

I work with a lot of communities, and I can say without a doubt that Memphis and Shelby County have certainly risen to the occasion with this training. I was proud to be a part of their learning process. This group proves to me that when people are motivated by one common goal and unified in their efforts towards reaching that goal, anything can be accomplished and agency lines can disappear, leaving one whole that is by far greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Tags: EMS, kirchberg-schmitt, LinkedIn, Memphis, mmrs, Paramedic, patient tracking system, ProMed

Why on Earth is Patient Tracking Important, you ask?

Tags: 911, disaster, EMS, fire, kirchberg-schmitt, Patient Tracking, police

Peter Canning

I have been reading Peter Canning’s books and blog for years, and I always enjoy his perspectives on this job we do.

http://medicscribe.blogspot.com/

He wrote several excellent blogs after he was deployed to Gulfport, Mississippi in 2005- I will attempt to link to them here on their own page.

Tags: Disaster Response, DMS, EMS, hurricane, Katrina, Paramedic, Peter Canning

Why on Earth is Patient Tracking Important, you ask?

 

Because for every injured person, there is someone who cares. A family, a friend, a coworker, a parent, an aunt, a daughter, a Pastor, a teacher, a neighbor, a spouse.

After attending NIMS ICS 100-400 this spring, I found myself wondering why there was no Patient Tracking Officer in the fancy Organizational chart they had…

It occured to me also that the number one person that is asking me for information usually is not the IC, but the PIO, otherwise known as the Public Information Officer. Oh, once in a while an IC will want to know the details of the reds, yellows, and greens. But at the heart of the matter is the patients themselves, and their family members, who seem to show up far quicker than they could have during regular times. And as these families clamor around, seeking answers, will you be able to provide them?

I found some videos today while I was preparing a new training program I am writing that I thought I should share, I will post them here.

Tags: Ambulance, Communications, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response Team, DMS, Drills, evacuation, evacuees, Gustav, Hannah, hurricane, Ike, Incident Communication Solutions, LaserBand, Louisiana, Memphis, New Orleans, Packing, Paramedic, patient, Planning, readiness, response, Team, Tennessee

For your FYI

My daughter went through a period where she would say this phrase at the beginning of every sentence. It was very cute and has now caught on in our house as a kind of “catch phrase” as well as an inside joke.

I tend to use it at work a lot to disarm people when they are getting too serious, and luckily, that hasn’t been the case with this deployment.  I do want to take a little time to make a few observations though about Gustav and the ensuing calamity that has occured now that there have been over 10,000 patients moved within a week period, thousands of evacuees moved all over the country, and multiple services, both volunteer, paid, FEMA funded or other that have entered, left, reentered a small and challenging part of our country, or received these people into their communities.

I personally saw at least four different tracking systems being used. All were redundant at least somewhat in nature.

Many EMA officials had no idea what the other tracking systems were, how to access them, or how to share data with them.

Several agencies with their own internal registration and tracking policies refused to work with other agencies, creating a large gap in communication and the ability to information-share among trusted networks. (and I’m referring to PEOPLE networks, not Computer ones).

I think that proper education and training are the keys to ensuring that things go more smoothly next time, and that hopefully, as we continue to learn and grow, so will the systems we use and develop to help us care for those in need more succinctly.

Tags: Ambulance, Communications, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response Team, DMS, Drills, evacuation, evacuees, Gustav, Hannah, hurricane, Ike, Incident Communication Solutions, LaserBand, Louisiana, Memphis, New Orleans, Packing, Paramedic, patient, Planning, readiness, response, Team, Tennessee

Back to Louisiana

Here I was, thinking I was getting to go home.  I am headed back down to Louisiana, this time with the ProMed Ambulance crews, one of the finest bunch of people I have gotten to meet in the EMS business, and certainly the hardest working.  Our tech department back home was monitoring all of our servers this week and commented on the lack of downtime these crews were taking for themselves, instead working to get the critical patients to safety as quickly as possible.  LSU certainly is lucky to have them along with the crews from numerous other companies.  I only got to meet a few of them, but those I did I will name here-

ASAP Ambulance, from Mississippi, Eagle, I am pretty sure they are from Memphis, LifeCare, LifeTeam, and of course, ProMed, who sent trucks from Knoxville (another place close to our hearts here at DMS), Nashville area, and Memphis.

We will caravan down (I will get left in the dust as I drive like a grandmother these days…) and set up shop wherever we can find accomodations for the crews. It’s going to be tough.

Tags: Ambulance, ASAP Ambulance, Communications, disaster, Disaster Management Solutions, Disaster Response Team, DMS, Drills, evacuation, evacuees, Gustav, Hannah, hurricane, Ike, Incident Communication Solutions, LaserBand, Louisiana, Memphis, New Orleans, Packing, Paramedic, patient, Planning, ProMed, readiness, response, Team, Tennessee